"Once Upon A Time... there were two very special airplanes that lived.... far.... far.... away on a tiny island in the Bering Sea. One was named Rivet Ball and the other was named Rivet Amber. Very few people knew anything about these two planes or the men that flew them. Even family members knew very little. That's because their mission was... TOP SECRET." (some photos and language within are NSFW)
posted on Aug 7, 2008 - View this thread

Wired: "In February, a B-2 stealth bomber crashed in Guam. Now we know why. And we've got video of the scene." (good stuff starts around 1:20)
posted on Jun 6, 2008 - View this thread

The lavishly-furnished custom Boeing 727 figures in the current tempest over his relationship with female lobbyist Vicki Iseman who provided and flew with McCain on the plane. Lots of colorful background in this investigative report by Daniel Hopsicker, the best muckraker since Gary Webb
posted on Feb 28, 2008 - View this thread

A collection of airliner videos. Strangely absent: Barrel rolling a 707 [YT].
posted on Feb 25, 2008 - View this thread

Russian cold war bombers - The Tu 95 Bear and Tu 160 Blackjack, based in central Russia, which resumed long range patrols in August.
posted on Dec 23, 2007 - View this thread

Wednesday morning plane pr0n.
posted on Dec 19, 2007 - View this thread

Airline Branding Weblog. Can you say "Awesome"?
posted on Oct 19, 2007 - View this thread

Pilot tells of hairy near miss at Las Vegas airport A post on Airliners.net telling, in some detail, of a near miss between an America West Airbus A320 (piloted by the author) and an Air Canada plane at Las Vegas airport. And if that puts you off flying, to calm down, another pilot's account, of a less hair-raising flight.
posted on Jul 30, 2007 - View this thread

Luigi Colani, Biomorphic Designer — This prolific master of plastic has been creating organically streamlined planes, trains, automobiles, trucks, motorcycles, ships, cities, homes, computers, cameras, televisions, furniture, pianos, ceramics, shoes, eyewear^PDF, pens, airbrushes, and other wonderful stuff (including the kitchen sink) for some 60 years. Wherever you need to go, you can reach your final destination in Colani style. More designs here, here, here, and here. [Brits and touristas take note: London's Design Museum will host a Colani exhibition, Translating Nature, from March 3 to June 17, 2007. Bibliophiles can check out the book Colani: The Art of Shaping the Future.]
posted on Feb 18, 2007 - View this thread

An interesting project from the latest Vectors Journal. "Legend has it that Paglen, who has been called the Fox Mulder of cultural geography, was personally instrumental in provoking the military to extend the perimeter around Area 51 by several miles in an attempt to thwart one of his counter-surveillance efforts" [via]
posted on Feb 16, 2007 - View this thread

Tales of Future Past* — It's been a looong Monday. Do you want to get off the planet and out of the city to a place where you can really live? Well, here's some food for thought on the way home down life's highways. First, take a break from all this depressing war talk. Then empower yourself by giving yourself some space and maybe taking off for a few days. Drive just a bit slower, turn up the volume and imagine that your mechanic will say the tranny's OK after all. Once you're in the front door, take time to get slightly wired and forget all about politics. Get recharged for tomorrow: have a nice long bath, put your mind at ease, watch Ur Fave shOw, and listen to some soothing music. Now, don't things look a lot better? [*Note the 'Start the Tour' links at the bottom of each page.]
posted on Feb 12, 2007 - View this thread

Skyrates, pronounced like "pirates," is a new flash game currently open for beta testing. Designed by a group of seven students at Carnegie Mellon University, the concept was to create an MMORPG that you could simply check on every few hours throughout the day, like you would with your e-mail. The outcome is a simple but enveloping, and somewhat silly game that manages to be addictive as hell while only taking up a few minutes per day. (plus it's free.)
posted on Dec 15, 2006 - View this thread

snake on a plane? (newsfilter-ish)
posted on Jun 2, 2006 - View this thread

Enplaned Even if you don't care a whit about the airline inductry, this is a great example of how to blog a topic well. [via Joel on Software]
posted on Feb 2, 2006 - View this thread

Asymmetric airplanes may look weird, but the idea isn't just for the luftwaffe anymore: Burt Rutan has done one too. Not counter-intuitive enough for you? How about an asymmetric helicopter?
posted on Dec 13, 2005 - View this thread

Note the champagne boxes. Lots of amazing interior and aerial photos of the new Airbus A380 are up on Airliners.net. It's a huge, huge plane. [There is more inside.]
posted on Dec 10, 2005 - View this thread

"People were tripping over each other, climbing over the seats to get to the exit." Warbaby posted a link on July 7 to an article by Lee Clark that said people don't panic in disasters. Survivors from Tuesday's Toronto plane crash give a different story. Here's one account: Ho said people at first were calm and lining up, but once fire from the back of the plane, "people were tripping over each other, climbing over the seats to get to the exit." He said a flight attendant told him to jump out the front door with no chute, but it was about a 12-fioot drop. He ran to a second door. It had a damaged chute, but he took it. "I jumped and fell onto some people," Ho said. "Some people broke their arms or legs."
posted on Aug 3, 2005 - View this thread

The end of Concorde was one of the few times in modern history that technology has been forced to regress. But it won't take long to fix.
posted on Jun 15, 2005 - View this thread

Haute Voltage stunt flight (Direct .mpg. Bonus if you read Russian)
posted on May 13, 2005 - View this thread

The Oops List. Enjoy the pure pleasure of the misfortune of others.
posted on Apr 20, 2005 - View this thread

Fantasy Planes. Sometimes I think the most interesting airplanes are the ones that never got built
posted on Feb 10, 2005 - View this thread

Little airplanes and cameras. Photos from RC planes on New Years Day. (via Gizmodo)
posted on Jan 6, 2005 - View this thread

The Pacific Wrecks Database is an impressive collection of information about lost and found WWII wrecks in the Pacific. The site is a little hard to navigate (I suggest using the past news archives and the direct links in the description slug on the first page, rather than the drop-down menu,) but the content is worth the trouble. Essays from veterans, discovery tales, photographs, maps, and more await.
posted on Sep 10, 2004 - View this thread

Twin Pushers and Other Free Flight Oddities. "For years, twin pushers were the dominant form of competition model. The format was discovered well before the first world war and remained common until the  mid thirties." Dannysoar excavates a lost model airplane format, and goes on to look at Mystery Biplanes, The Airplanes of Things to Come, Miss Auto Gyro Across the Channel Day, and other winging things, in great and pleasingly eccentric abundance. Klick the Klicker!
posted on Jun 29, 2004 - View this thread

Aerosite.
posted on Dec 29, 2003 - View this thread

Austrailian pilot stuck in Antarctica That story is interesting enough, but the background on the pilot (just your typical nurse-midwife homebuilt avionics adventurer) available here is fascinating. I love reading these stories about common folk following their dreams and accomplishing huge things. Dare I say inspiring? Lifted from SlashDot
posted on Dec 11, 2003 - View this thread

The Spirit of Butts Farm has made it across the Atlantic in one piece. Not bad for a toy plane designed by deaf and blind Maynard Hill, who already holds many records for RC aircraft flights. Those with less lofty ambitions could fly this helicopter in their living room or just practise on their computer screen.
posted on Aug 14, 2003 - View this thread

51 Migs Found Buried in Iraq
posted on Aug 9, 2003 - View this thread

A pole in the ground + an old Plane on top of it = home sweet home. A company in Tennesee is selling old airplanes as homes on ebay. I wonder if the new homeowners ever get tired of eating those little packets of peanuts every night.
posted on Jul 19, 2003 - View this thread

The F-22 Raptor is the next generation fighter for the United States. At nearly 97 million each, it will be deployed in 2004.This site gives a remarkably detailed report regarding its design and function. Including such gems as "first-look, first-shot, first-kill capability" and " Humans are good differentiators, but they are poor integrators."
posted on Dec 19, 2002 - View this thread

How to build a bomb isn't all there is to the Internet as press would have you think. Anyway it's harder than just getting some plans, as this guy found out. So why not build a bomb shelter instead? Or build your own train, hovercraft, speedboat, car or plane - can't fly - don't worry build a flight simulator! Toast your success with DIY firewater cooked with your solar furnace. Enjoy your CB radio, listen to MP3s or toy with your sextant. And with all the kinky clothes and loads of pervy toys to make who has time to build bombs? I can see the bumper stickers now "Make leg spreaders, not war!"
posted on Oct 14, 2002 - View this thread

The effects of jet contrails on climate. Taking advantage of a unique research opportunity brought about by the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on America, when all commercial air traffic in the country stood still for three days, scientists have uncovered the first clear evidence. Link to British journal Nature article on subject and IPCC article.
posted on Aug 8, 2002 - View this thread

All coach seats are not created equal Every inch counts. Airplane coach seats with extra inches of stretching room. Print out and keep handy for when you fly.
posted on Apr 29, 2002 - View this thread

The sky is falling, the sky is falling! -- never mind, it's just cremated human remains.
posted on Jan 15, 2002 - View this thread

New type of RC plane going for around $100 They're electric as opposed to gas powered, lighter than their gas powered cousins, and a fraction of the cost. I've always wanted to get into RC planes, but the cost was prohibitive until now.
posted on Dec 21, 2001 - View this thread

Lockheed Martin beat out Boeing for a $200 Billion contract to build the new F-35 fighters jets earlier today. Missile defense, planes that can take off vertically, bombs that fry electronics...military technology is accelerating at a really frightening pace.
posted on Oct 26, 2001 - View this thread

Air Force One wasn't a target, and administration officials now doubt there was a threatening phone call. And radar data indicates that the plane that hit the Pentagon was not headed for the White House.
posted on Sep 27, 2001 - View this thread

Flight Data Recorder found for United Airlines flight 93 in Pennsylvania. They've also found the signal for at least one of the data recorders on the Pentagon flight, as well. Assuming it's still readable, the flight recorder for UA 93 could give new insight into why the plane went down, and why they're now finding debris 6 miles from the crash site. (The information for flight 93 came from CNN broadcast, but hasn't made it online yet.)
posted on Sep 13, 2001 - View this thread

Plane crashes in Mexico, killing 19. Despite a few early misleading reports, foul play is NOT suspected.
posted on Sep 13, 2001 - View this thread

Canada: Spillover Nation Essentially every airport in Canada able to land a jumbo jet has done so. Halifax is packed to the walls with 44 planes; 24 at Pearson; 14 at Mirabel; two in Whitehorse, one of them, a KAL cargo plane, undergoing an escorted quasi-emergency landing because the pilot could not communicate in English with the control tower (!) to explain that the plane was low on fuel. Serious echoes of Swissair 111, where suddenly the small Atlantic airports showed themselves as invaluable and irreplaceable.
posted on Sep 11, 2001 - View this thread

Singer Aaliyah Killed in Plane Crash

R & B singer and actress Aaliyah died after a small plane that was to carry her and eight others back to the United States crashed after takeoff in the Bahamas, authorities said.

I keep typing a description here. and erasing it. I don't know what to say. This is beyond awful. :(
posted on Aug 25, 2001 - View this thread

Those darn airmen in their flying contraptions... Interested in hearing other's opinions on this. If I have an airplane should I be able to fly wherever I want to, or should property owners be able to erect an invisible fence 40,000 feet high around their property to keep airplane owners away? Also, if I can keep people with noisy airplanes from flying close to my house, can I also outlaw people with noisy motorcyles from riding on country roads near my home?
posted on Jul 9, 2001 - View this thread

Russian Concordski (Concord) for sale on the Internet
posted on Jul 5, 2001 - View this thread

Malcolm Gladwell on JFK Jr's Crash New from the New Yorker. Actually the article talks mostly about the difference between choking and panicking, mostly in Sports. Still, the discussion about the plane crash is the most fascinating. Perhaps thats because of my morbid fascination with plane crashes:

Chapter 1 of "Inmates Are Running the Asylum" by Alan Cooper (American Crash in Cali, Colombia).... Bruce Tognazzini on Interfaces that Kill (John Denver).... The Lessons of ValuJet 592 by the masterful William Langweische.... The same Mr. Langweische has a book called "Inside the Sky: Meditations on Flight" which looks interesting.
posted on Sep 26, 2000 - View this thread